Maya Hawke will star in Legendary Entertainment and Hasbro Entertainment’s live-action “Magic: The Gathering” film, becoming the first actor attached to a project meant to anchor a wider franchise, Deadline reported Wednesday.
Her role is undisclosed. Producers made her the first offer before auditions for the other parts, and she is expected to lead an ensemble that has yet to be cast. Hawke, best known for “Stranger Things,” also appeared in “Little Women” and “Do Revenge” and voiced Anxiety in “Inside Out 2.”
Matt Johnson, who directed “BlackBerry” and created “Nirvanna the Band the Show,” will direct and write the script with Noah Gardner and Aidan Fitzgerald. A longtime player, Johnson marked the news with a statement about a Grand Prix tournament in Detroit. He was undefeated entering the second day and began telling himself he would quit film school to play professionally. He lost in the later rounds, drove home to Toronto and decided his Magic career had ended. “In every pool, there is a day 2 deck,” he said. In February, he told an interviewer the film was moving “full speed ahead.”
Legendary and Hasbro announced the partnership in February 2025, presenting the movie as the first step toward a film and television universe. The studios have not set a release date, named a distributor or revealed a plot.
The game gives the filmmakers a large built-in audience. Wizards of the Coast launched Magic in 1993, and players take the part of dueling wizards called Planeswalkers. The game became Hasbro’s first $1 billion brand in 2022 and counts roughly 50 million players worldwide.
Hollywood has stumbled with it before. A 2008 Hasbro agreement with Universal collapsed, and a 2014 push at 20th Century Fox, which involved producer Simon Kinberg, was later scrapped.
